Sieves Of Success
How we speak, respond, or how we represent ourselves receives perhaps the most recurring criticism.
Oddly enough people who need us at work, or closest to us at home, are the ones who usually make this demand repeatedly.
Strangers bear up.
What perhaps is actually being said though, without our realizing it, is this:
“Listen – can you make it easier for me to love you?
Can you make it easier for me to work with you?
Can you make it easier for me to be me?
Please, I want to me a good Mom. I want to be a good Dad. Brother. Friend. Husband. Wife. Colleague. Boss. Neighbour.
Help me.
Understand.”
We may each of us not be a billion different things.
We may not be happy, we may not be debt free, and our I.Q.’s may not be enviable.
What each of us has in common, however, is that we believe we are fair.
We give everybody a fair chance, a fair hearing and a fair decision. We are just.
We also believe we are rational.
And, I think, that we are loving…. or caring. …or good at what we do.
If you want to stop somebody in his or her tracks present them with the notion that they are being unfair.
Try telling somebody that they’re being irrational. The best way to get someone to love you less, is by confronting them with the notion that they’re unloving.
Yet we do this all the time.
And it is done to us equally.
How we deal with this common, and unwelcome, experience makes us winners or also-ran.
Sometimes, we reduce the person who’s making the request, to a state where s/he believes that s/he has no more hope and must deal with an unchangeable person.
“Take me as I am or lump it!”
That’s like asking the midday sun to love, or work with, the morning dew.
Nothing evaporates love faster than the thought of being stuck in a relationship.
Nothing robs of performance more than the absence of choice.
You know you love someone when you willingly open yourself to the other persons need for change in you.
“ This is who I am – Love me!” is the armour of those who pretend to care.
It’s our own lack of love, often, that causes the other to appear unloving.
“I am not loved” is the lie we need, to remain wedded to our indifference.
It enables us to remain, in our own minds, rational, fair and loving.
People who succeed at relationships have three things losers don’t: Courage, humility and perseverance.
It needs courage, to confront yourself and say: “I want to change.”
It needs humility to: (a) accept the change asked for by a spouse, colleague, subordinate, boss, family or friend. (b) Remain grateful for these who bear up with our unchanged selves so far.
You will know you’ve reached the pinnacle of your success in your relationship or career when you choose to complain.
The successful are silent. They are working at themselves.